Denver pilot learns she's not related to Amelia Earhart

Aug. 13, 2013
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Oshkosh, Wi 7/29/2013, Airventure air show. Amelia Rose Earhart with a Pilatus PC-12 NA similar to the one she hopes to retrace the famous flight of her namesake, Amelia Earhart, next year. The two pilots are not related. [Via MerlinFTP Drop] / Tim Loehrke USAT

by Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

by Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

Amelia Rose Earhart, a 30-year-old Denver television reporter and pilot who next summer will attempt to re-create and complete the final flight of Amelia Earhart, says she has now learned that she is not related to the legendary aviator.

"In the last 24 hours, new information from a team of researchers that I hired shows that while I share a name and a passion for flying with Amelia Earhart, we are not from the same family," says Earhart, a news traffic reporter for the NBC affiliate in Denver, Gannett-owned KUSA 9News. Gannett also owns USA TODAY.

"While my family and Amelia's did settle in nearby counties in the same state, the only thing we shared was our last name," she says.

Earhart, who had said previously that she was a distant relative of Earhart's, says she grew up believing they were related. She says she hired a genealogist when she was in college to trace her roots. "She told me that Amelia and I share a distant common ancestry traced back to the 1700s," Earhart says.

"When I decided to re-create Amelia's flight around the world, it became clear that it was time to establish the exact connection between the two of us. So I hired a team of expert genealogists to finally establish the link," she says. "So my connection to Amelia isn't what I thought it was. And I'll admit, the last 24 hours, they've been really hard. It's tough to hear that something you've believed your whole life just isn't true."

Amelia Earhart was the first female pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1932. She was one of the most famous celebrities of her era, and was a pioneering advocate for women's opportunities. Her plane vanished on July 2, 1937, as she and navigator Fred Noonan were attempting an approach to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. They were three-quarters of the way through a 29,000-mile around-the-world flight. They plane's wreckage was never found.

Next June, Amelia Rose Earhart and her co-pilot, Arkansas businessman and adventurer Patrick Carter, 29, plan to take off from Oakland for a two-week, 14-country trek that will approximate as closely as possible Amelia Earhart's planned flight. They'll fly in a 2014 model PC-12 NG supplied by Pilatus Business Aircraft of Broomfield, Colo.